The Lazy Lies of Roger Watson

Dr Roger Watson was introduced to us earlier this year when he wrote a clumsy hit piece against Sam that was published on The Daily Sceptic website. Watson clearly had scant understanding of the work we had produced and his attack against Sam had little to do with actual science. Sam wrote in her rebuttal that, “much of his article was ad hominem in nature and doesn’t need to be dignified with a response but I will proceed to address his inaccurate scientific claims point by point.” Watson was scorched in the comments section of his own article and Sam’s rebuttal exposed the large gaps in his knowledge of virology. His confusion regarding the key issue of virus isolation continues and his own explanations are not even internally consistent, as is patently evident in the following example:

"In fact, a great many viruses have been purified, often against the odds."

Dr Roger Watson, The Daily Sceptic, March 2022

“…viruses can't be purified; that is not in doubt - they are shown to exist by other experimental methods…”

Dr Roger Watson, by email, July 2022

We never imagined that Watson would want to come back for another round so were surprised when he published another smear piece, this time on a platform calling itself the Country Squire Magazine. The article was libellous and we considered launching a defamation claim before realising that someone else had beaten us to it with their own legal action against the little rag. By all accounts the perpetrators behind this website are in deep strife and have resorted to public begging to bail themselves out of a potential £500,000 bill. Interestingly, Watson is the current Editor-in-Chief of Elsevier’s Nurse Education in Practice, but turned to the troubled Country Squire to publish his character assassination attempt against us.

Incredibly, the article was titled “Baileys' Quoque”. Tu quoque means using ad hominem attacks to portray an opponent’s behaviour and actions as inconsistent with their arguments, i.e. as being hypocritical. Watson did not give a single example of us using this fallacious argumentation technique and simply asserted that it is evident in our work. He then referred to a blog that stated, “ad hominem attacks are used to provide an excuse for avoiding scientific debate.” However, there were no examples of the Baileys using ad hominem arguments in that blog either.

Watson’s latest piece did not cite any scientific material for his claims and he was certainly not shy in employing fallacious arguments he baselessly accuses others of using. In his first Sceptic article, he argued that the evidence for viruses can be made through appeals to common opinion, where he provided Dr Mike Yeadon as an example:

"After all, anti (Covid) vaxxer supreme, Dr. Mike Yeadon made it clear in his excellent interview with Neil Oliver on GB News that he believes a unique virus exists."

Dr Roger Watson, The Daily Sceptic, March 2022

Mike Yeadon subsequently performed his own investigations into the methodologies of the virologists and declared that not only was there no evidence for SARS-CoV-2, but that no respiratory viruses exist period. Now, according to Watson, we should no longer trust Yeadon for expressing this newfound scepticism about pathogenic viruses:

“Mike Yeadon, former scientific researcher and vice president at drugs giant Pfizer Inc. who, until this point, seemed like a voice of reason over Covid-19 to sign.”

Dr Roger Watson, Country Squire Magazine, August 2022

It is not the first time Watson has turned on someone when they don’t suit his purpose. In his recent Country Squire piece he spoke disparagingly of Dr Andrew Kaufman and linked him to a smear article on a McGill University site. However, in 2020 Watson was a co-signatory with Kaufman in a letter challenging Boris Johnson to prove that, “a virus exists which causes COVID-19”! If Watson managed to refute Kaufman’s and the other co-signatories’ arguments since that time, none of us are aware of how or why this took place.

In the Country Squire article Watson stated that, “the eponymous Popperian method of conducting science works through disproof of hypotheses and, unless such disproof can be established the hypothesis is extant.” What Watson was trying to say about virology is not clear, a feature of much of his writing on the topic. We have pointed out that virology has never performed properly controlled experiments and thus has not followed the scientific method. At the heart of the Popperian method are hypothesis-driven and falsifiable experiments, so by bringing in this argument he shot himself in the foot. Inadvertently he has drawn attention to the very aspect that the virologists are trying to avoid - falsifying their own hypothesis by performing valid control experiments.

He then stated, “one may choose to believe or not in the outcome, but one must also ‘fight fair ’if one is to try to overturn 100 years of established evidence based theory.” I am also for a fair fight but if ‘by their fruits ye shall know them’ calls out the false prophets, then Watson is in good company…

Dr Watson, can you please show us one publication that follows the scientific method and demonstrates the existence of a virus amongst the, “100 years of established evidence based theory”?

Watson then started mindlessly repeating the claims made by Steve Kirsch in regard to the “Settling the Virus Debate” statement. He reported, “Baileys & Co. outline a series of perfectly good experiments in my view and their challenge has been accepted but, while they claim to have the funding, they have refused to give it to one scientist, Dr Kevin McCairn.” He then referred to a website setup by McCairn himself. The “Settling the Virus Debate” statement clearly says, “5 virology labs worldwide would participate in this experiment and none would know the identities of the other participating labs.” Thus, it should have be perfectly lucid to Watson that McCairn disqualified himself from participating in the experiments due to the latter’s self-publicised announcements.

Watson continued to parrot Kirsch stating, “as explained by Steve Kirsch, several virologists have offered to enter a debate with them, but true to form, they have not taken up the offer.” Watson is misleading the public again as he knows that it was Steve Kirsch who backed out of a debate challenge that he issued in January 2022. Watson has read the “Settling the Virus Debate” document which states, “rather than engaging in wasteful verbal sparring, let us put this argument to rest by doing clear, precise, scientific experiments that will, without any doubt, show whether these claims are valid.” Like Kirsch, he is distracting from the fact that valid control experiments have not been carried out in virology. So, what would the proposed debate be about now Dr Watson? 

Why we don’t need control experiments in virology?

Watson then decided to mention the online debate that newscaster Tim Truth organised between myself and Kevin McCairn. Watson incorrectly stated that, “it quickly becomes apparent why Dr Bailey agreed; Tim Truth is a virus denier himself and barely let Dr McCairn speak whilst repeatedly inviting Dr Bailey to do so.” In fact, prior to the debate, McCairn had been given hours of air time over multiple appearances on Tim Truth’s platform. Neither of the other parties were known to me and Sam’s website received the following email from Tim Truth on May 13th, 2022:

Hi Drs Sam & Mark,
I'm in contact with Dr. Kevin McCairn who is of the opinion the virus is real and thinks it was engineered in a lab. I'm trying to set up a debate between him and someone on the no virus side of the schism. He says he's down. Would either or both of you like to go up against him? I would serve as the impartial moderator and everyone could use the video as they wish. If not, maybe you know of someone else I can ask?

We were sceptical that someone from the ‘pro-virus’ camp was genuinely wanting to take part in a civilised debate so Sam’s email response on the same day was:

Hi Tim, as long as it's not a stunt of some sort, Mark will happily come on your platform to participate as he is our debating specialist. Mark feels it is likely that he will be addressing the typical claims made by the establishment virologists but if that will be useful for your audience I guess that is fine?

Watson gave a highly disingenuous account of the debate, claiming that I preferred to, “issue a series of scientifically unsubstantiated and untestable statements,” but characteristically provided not one example of such a statement. He concluded that, “despite the one-sided nature of the debate, Dr McCairn won hands down.” From what I understand, the only one who claimed that result was McCairn and Watson does himself no favours by endorsing him. McCairn’s behaviour was farcical during the debate, from his inability to make an opening statement, his inability to discuss the methodologies of the virologists, his avoidance of discussing what a valid control experiment involved, and his childish ad hominem outbursts. In a case of the blind leading the naked with regard to the virus existence issue, Watson encouraged his readers to watch the debate. I would encourage the same, although with the caveat that McCairn’s lack of knowledge concerning virology and his time-wasting antics annoyed a great deal of the audience.

The conclusion to Watson’s article was that the Baileys are making a fortune by luring people in with our own extensively-researched content that we provide to the public…for free. He revealed that a book is for sale on our website - yes Roger, that is Sam’s Virus Mania and authors are often known to sell their own books. He then speculates that the website makes, “a staggering $1,500,000 annually.” How does Watson come up with this fictional figure? By using modelling perhaps inspired by Neil Ferguson he multiplied $5 by the number of non-paying subscribers to the Dr Sam Bailey YouTube channel. I’ve previously suggested to him that he could contact us to check the facts but instead he chooses to publicly embarrass himself with such schoolboy errors.

Watson’s bloopers continued when he stated, “both Baileys are medically qualified doctors who have abandoned allopathic medicine (the use of tested remedies) for naturopathy (the use of untested remedies).” Again his struggles with basic terminology are cringeworthy. Allopathic means the use of modalities such drugs, surgery, and radiation - it does not mean “tested remedies.” (Watson has spoken against the COVID-19 vaccines so must be performing mental gymnastics to decide where they fit in to his definition.) Naturopathy means avoiding the use of drugs and most surgeries, instead focusing on dietary and lifestyle measures. The latter is a well and truly “tested remedy” that has nourished humanity for generations and is embraced by the Baileys for our own family. We are happy to leave the promotion of germ theory, imaginary pathogens, other vaccines, and pharmaceuticals to Watson. At this rate he’s probably one of their worst salesmen and his latest efforts have hopefully nudged a few more in the right direction for better health.

Sadly, I have little hope that he will engage on the appropriate scientific level but I offer a final question for Dr Watson:

Do you agree that any experiment whose results are claimed to provide the evidence for the existence of a virus must affirm, beyond reasonable doubt, all the properties of a virus as encompassed by its definition*?

*a tiny disease-causing replication-competent intracellular parasite consisting of a genome and a proteinaceous shell.